Monday, July 23, 2018

Your Three Fan Communities Part 2: Your Engaged Fans | hypebot

In part 2 of this three part series on fan communities and engagement, Ariel Hyatt of CyberPR explores how to identify and communicate with engaged fans. Unlike super fans, "they’re engaged with you in what the New York Times brilliantly referred to as ambient awareness."

Every Artist Has Three Communities – they are separate from one another.

The problem is most artists have only one strategy for marketing and promoting to three totally separate groups.

This post focuses on how to energize and connect with Community 2 – Engaged Fans. These fans are your Active Online Audience. They are newsletter subscribers, blog readers, video streamers, active Social Media followers who comment & engage sometimes (but not nearly as frequently as your Super Fans)

They’re engaged with you in what the New York Times brilliantly referred to as “ambient awareness.” They know who you are but they may not know you very well (yet). With this community, as with all three, engagement is critical, but here it will be different. In Community 2 contribution is critical but engagement is even more vital.

Recap: Your 3 Communities Are:

Community #1: Your Super Fans

These are fans who are primarily Your Live Audience. You know them by name. If you play out live, they attend your shows regularly and buy many things you offer (not just music). If you have a street team they are on it and they evangelize strongly on your behalf. They are the first responders when you post on your socials and they are following you on multiple channels.

Community #3: Ambient Fans

These fans are your Passive Online Audience and they are your social media friends who are aware of you via Twitter, Facebook, Instagram etc. but don’t actively communicate with you and may not have ever even heard your music (yet).

Community #2: Engaged Fans AKA Your Active Online Audience

In Community 2 contribution is critical but engagement is even more vital.

How to Engage Community #2 Engaged Fans

Create a Checklist For Systematizing Your Outreach & Follow Up

Website:

Change the artwork on the landing page to announce the new music

Add an announcement to the News section

Mention of the new release to the Bio/About section with a link to stream (studies show people tend to take action on the Bio page!).

Invite them to like your Facebook Page

Ask them to become a follower on Spotify

Watch a video of you on YouTube and subscribe to your channel

Invite them out to hang with you at a bar, club, coffee house, art show, conference, etc.

Send a survey to fill out

Create a contest to participate in

Use This Live Gig Ultimate Fan Engagement Tip

Keep in mind: People are more interested in themselves than they are in you. Make them the main attraction. These fans will also be delighted that they have been included.

Take photos or videos at every single show from the stage or at the merch table of people that come up to talk to you and/ or purchase merch and create photo albums for each show on Facebook. When you post ask fans to come and tag themselves.

As you add everyone to the mailing list, you point them to each photoset featuring: Them! They are very likely to go check themselves out.

Another great tactic is parsing out your newsletter list and MOST IMPORTANTLY your Facebook list so that it is split up by geographical location so that when you play each market, you can personalize the message and you won’t be spamming people who live in Duluth for a show in L.A.

Go through all your friends (yes it’s a pain in the arse but spamming people makes YOU the pain in the arse) and create a separate list for each location New York, L.A, Cleveland etc etc. I also maintain a list of “Unknown City” for the people who don’t identify where they live. Send them each an individual note asking and add them to the right list.

Now when you have a show you will be laser focused in your Facebook promotion.

Ariel Hyatt is the founder of Cyber PR; a Brooklyn-based social media PR firm. Her Cyber PR campaigns, books & seminars help connect artists with new media makers and coach them to create authentic relationships with fans.